


My Heart Will Go On...

by onceuponamills



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Bucket List, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Swan-Mills Family, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-01 03:03:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8604619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponamills/pseuds/onceuponamills
Summary: After being diagnosed with a terminal illness and a year to live, Emma Swan sets out to complete a list of things to see and do before she dies. And like most things in her life, she had planned on doing this alone. That is until she meets Regina Mills, a single mother of a sickly boy who changes Emma's world forever.





	1. The First

Something about the great outdoors called to Emma Swan. Maybe it was the crisp cool air blowing in her face. Or maybe it was the scent of evergreen trees that stretched for miles, far beyond what her eyes could see. Whatever the attraction, Emma found herself trekking the side of a steep mountain trail without a care in the world. It was cold enough for her to see her breath in front of her face but warm enough where the sun rays peaking through the trees beamed in her eyes, causing her to squint. The peaceful sounds of birds chirping in the distance was enough to remind her of the serenity of it all. No one around to judge her; not a single soul was up the early or this high on the trail. As Emma hiked the last leg, her carefree attitude that had gotten her to this point suddenly changed. In front of her, violent reds, fervent oranges and vibrant yellow and green trees lay ablaze in a valley below her. She’d never been this high up, never had this much control. For a moment the fear of being on top of the world consumed her and took over. She screamed. As loud as she could, Emma wailed, releasing all of her heart ache and suffering. She collected herself and wiped hot tears from face, watching the birds she had startled with her cries. Taking in a deep breath and regaining the calm she once possessed, Emma said what she had been needing to say out loud for too long. 

 

 

“I’m dying. I have cancer, and I’m dying…”


	2. The Second

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably warn you all that my medical knowledge is that of a child. I've watched all 13 seasons of Grey's Anatomy. Does that count? Anyway, a big thanks to everyone who left kudos and bookmarked this story. I'm very proud of this chapter and I hope you all like what I've written. Leave a comment of questions, requests and concerns : I'd really appreciate that. You can also find me on tumblr (onceuponamills) and on twitter (@lipscarparrilla) where I can answer anything you'd like. Again, I hope you enjoy this chapter. I love you guys!!

With shaky hands, Emma pulled out a crinkled piece of paper that had been shoved in her pockets for weeks now. It was blank, all but the title. In her sloppy handwriting, she traced the words, “BUCKET LIST” and sighed. Should climbing to the top of some common mountain trail really count as one of things she wanted to do most in life? In her case especially, life was too short to fret over the little things. So she wiped her tears, grabbed her stuff and made her way back down the scenic trail. 

 

Once she reached the bottom, she regrettably drove an hour back to the place that she had called home for the past few years. Well, on and off since she was 18. She didn’t mind the drive, however. Whatever could keep her as far away from Boston’s Medical Institute as possible was a blessing in and of itself. So she drove. Past miles of trees and down endless winding roads. “There is so much I haven’t seen.”, she thought to herself. And it was true. As a kid in and out of foster homes, she didn’t exactly have the opportunity to venture all that the whole wide world had to offer. No fancy vacations or spontaneous family road trips. Between her illness and lack of means, fate had chained her to the beloved Beantown for reasons outside of her control. Boston was fine, really, it wasn’t as busy as New York City or Los Angeles but wasn’t painfully boring like other cities around the US. So she’s told. It wasn’t the city that Emma didn’t like. It was what it symbolized. At this point, she’d do anything to just get away. Escape the hell that has been her life these past 26 years. 

 

A ‘Welcome to Boston’ sign greeted her and made her skin crawl. It was only a matter of time before she’d be back in her hospital room with nothing but the sound of beeping monitors and the hum of machinery, a noise that was a reminder of the fact that her life had become nothing but a ticking time bomb waiting to detonate. The positivity that use to beam off of Emma had vanished with her hope of a future. A girl that, despite her dreary childhood and what seemed like consistent bad luck, managed to always have a smile on her face. Even in the hospital over the past eight years, every doctor knew her for her bubbly personality and witty humor. But in the past few weeks, there was a change deep inside Emma. A change that everyone had noticed. 

 

Walking through the hospital doors, Emma immediately received a warm welcome from one of the hospital’s secretaries, Ruby. “Emma! Great to see you. Lookin’ good sugar!”, she cheered. Emma responded with a polite smile but moved on towards her room on the third floor without a single word. Ruby had obviously wanted to talk more but Emma had no energy or interest. She was just going to receive more bad news from her doctors today. What was it now? Another surgery? Better yet, was it more chemo? All in an effort to make her more “comfortable”. Psst. There was absolutely no comfort in dying. None whatsoever. 

 

On her way to the elevator she bumped into a preoccupied Mary Margaret and David, two nurses who couldn’t stop making goo goo eyes at each other if their lives depended on it. The fact that David was married held no importance, Emma and everyone else in the hospital could see right through it. Adultery aside, seeing two people who were truly in love was something Emma found rare. “Oh, Emma!”, Mary Margaret chirped in an effort to distract Emma from the unprofessional conduct she had just witnessed, “I have a really good feeling about today.” 

 

“Really, why?”, Emma responded, her inner optimist getting the best of her. 

 

“Hope, Emma. I have faith. And you should too.”, She smiled and gave Emma a mint from off of the desk behind them. All Emma could do was scoff in a joking way, take the candy and continue to make her way up to her room. Something about Mary Margaret’s cheerful spirit was charming, while at the same time, painfully annoying. 

 

In the elevator, Emma gathered herself and prepared herself for the worst. “You already have a death sentence, it can’t get much worse, Em.”, she reasoned with herself. So when she walked into her room and heard the screams of an angered woman, she had to reevaluate her logic. It could get worse, it just did. She slowly inched her way into the room as if there were landmines on each tile, waiting to explode. And by the volume in which the woman was yelling, there might as well have been. The curtain separating Emma’s space and theirs had been left open, giving her the perfect view of the situation. 

 

“What do you mean his surgery has been moved back to next Friday?”, the woman shouted.

 

“I- Well- uhm, you see - I-”, the new intern named Archie stuttered, obviously startled by the confrontational demeanor of the woman. Emma had only seen him a couple times before but his shy personality was definitely not cut out to handle a screaming lady, that’s for sure. 

 

“Where is Dr. Fisher? I wish to speak with her immediately!”, she demanded, stomping her stiletto into the floor angrily. She was acting like a child who couldn’t get their way and it made Emma chuckle a bit. 

 

“Sh-She is in surgery and uhm, if you like I can tell her after--” Archie began but the woman didn’t even begin to let him finish. 

 

Moving closer to him, the woman seethed, “You moron! Where did you get your degree from : the institute of incompetency? Go get your superior so help me--”, but before she could finish her sentence, Archie was out of the room, storming past Emma on his way out. 

 

In that moment, Emma lost all control and began laughing. What started as tiny giggles had now progressed into a full blown cackle. She placed her hand over her mouth but it was too late. The dark haired woman turned around with the a fiery glare.

 

“Is there something funny?”, she questioned in a dark almost sultry voice. Emma slowly stopped laughing and gulped hard. She normally wasn’t so easily intimidated but it was apparent that there was nothing normal about this woman. 

 

“No, no”, she stated, “I mean you were a little harsh on the poor guy don’t you think?”

 

“No. I do not think I was ‘harsh’. If that idiot can’t handle a concerned mother just trying to care for her son then maybe he is in the wrong profession.”, she said confidently. For the first time, Emma looked over to the boy sitting patiently on the bed. He was reading a book, which was surprising to her. He couldn’t be more than four years old. However, she was pleased that he seemed blissfully ignorant to the tirade his mother had just gone on. 

 

“Touche”, Emma said moving towards her. She stretched out her hand for the woman to shake. “I’m Emma, Emma Swan.”

 

The woman reluctantly shook Emma’s hand, barely even letting their fingers touch as if Emma has just sneezed into her hand before going to shake her’s, “Regina Mills.”

 

“And what’s this little guys name?”, Emma said in a voice that hadn’t escaped her mouth in a long time. It was cheerful and youthful. 

 

“His name is Henry. Now if you don’t mind, he needs to rest. He will being going in for surgery this afternoon. I will make sure of that.”, she stated matter of fact. Something told Emma anything this woman wanted, she got. 

 

Emma looked at the mint in her hand that Mary Margaret had given her just a few minutes earlier. “Hey kid, want this?”, she offered innocently. If she had been stuck in a hospital at his age, she probably would have loved something sweet to cheer herself up. 

 

But as she reached her arm out to give it to the boy, Regina grabbed her wrist and looked her dead in the eye. “Are you insane, Miss Swan?”, she asked in a serious tone. Above all, Emma was taken aback by the contact of their hands. She was going to respond but Regina continued before she even had a chance. “My son is in liver failure. Do you understand what that cheap confectionery will do to his body.” Besides the fact that Emma had no clue what confectionery was, Regina had reduced her voice into a whisper so her son wouldn’t hear her say, “That could have killed him. I mean the nerve of some people! First the pea brained intern and now you.”

 

It was now that for the first time since she’d walked in that she noticed just how sickly the boy looked. His complexion was an ill shade of yellow and the bags under his eyes indicated he’d experienced pain beyond his years. “Wow. Uhm, I’m so sorry Regina. I had no idea…”, Emma trailed off as she removed her wrist from the woman’s grip. Emma thought about her careless action and how she’d be able to live with herself if she had actually inflicted pain upon that boy. 

 

Regina noticed that Emma was actually distraught by her words and pushed her pride aside to say, “It’s not the end of the world, Miss Swan. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again. You have to realize that Henry means the world to me. I am nothing if I don’t have my son.” This was so raw and intimate for some stranger she didn’t know at all. This was completely unlike Regina so she added, “Don’t think I won’t sue you into next Tuesday if you ever so much as touch a hair on his head.”

 

“Right”, Emma smiled. She liked Regina. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was about her but this dark haired woman intrigued her. She turned to her side of the room, closing the curtain on her way. She could faintly make out the soft voice of Regina comforting her son as she settled back into her all to familiar hospital bed, causing the corner of Emma’s lips to curl up into a grin. 

 

And even though fate had unfortunately had brought these two women together in a scary hospital room, it didn’t seem so bad. Emma could get use to not feeling so alone, even if it’s only for a day until Henry went into surgery. From the other side of the thin blue curtain separating them, Emma heard the gleeful sound of Henry’s giddy laughter. The sound of loving voices was much more comforting than the silence of uncertainty this room once possessed. 

 

As Emma waited alone for her doctor to arrive, she thought about what Mary Margaret had said. Maybe there was some truth behind her blind faith in the universe. Today she could receive terribly bad news. Her doctor could walk into the room at any second and tell her that she doesn’t even have a week left on this Earth. But she, for reasons unknown to her, felt hope in heart once again. Maybe it was the happiness in the boy’s eyes or the scent of apples that now filled the room from his mother’s perfume. Nonetheless, everything seemed significantly less terrifying. “That’s a start”, Emma thought to herself just as her there was a knock at the door. It was Emma’s doctor. 

 

With a sigh, she pushed her fear away and smiled, “What’s the news, Doc?”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this small update. Next chapter you'll all get to meet Regina so don't worry. I know she wasn't in this chapter but you'll have to trust me. I don't know when I'll be updating next but if my schedule allows, hopefully soon. Thanks again for reading. Feel free to leave a comment, kudos and share this with someone who is just as much of SwanQueen trash as you are. 
> 
> \- Mary


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